A certain type of bacteria is making waves in the science community for its ability to eat electricity. These electric bacteria use energy in the purest form-electrons taken from rocks and metals. This is a major distinguishing characteristic. They essentially ingest and excrete pure electricity. In a sense, this process is not mind-blowing. Life itself can more or less be boiled down to the passage of electrons, aided by the presence of sugar. Sugars digested by living things carry excess electrons, which are ultimately passed onto oxygen molecules, after the production of energy-storing ATP molecules. This is the foundation of energy transfer for animals. As Julian explains here, the discovery of electric bacteria is radically changing how we understand energy transfer in living organisms.

Learn More:Meet the electric life forms that live on pure energy (New Scientist)"Stick an electrode in the ground, pump electrons down it, and they will come: living cells that eat electricity. We have known bacteria to survive on a variety of energy sources, but none as weird as this."

Bacteria use electric wires to shock uranium out of groundwater (Discover Magazine)"Uranium, freed from the earth and destined for nuclear weapons, now contaminates the groundwater beneath several Colorado mines. But at some of these mines, a most unusual clean-up crew is at work. Lashing about with long electric cables connected to their own bodies, they remove dissolved uranium from the water."